As a child and parent, Gregory Maguire has found in fairy tales "the deepest truths'' about confronting and surviving evil in an uncertain world.

For more than 30 years, the Concord author has reignited the dark lessons of fables and folklore, from Aesop and the Brothers Grimm to L. Frank Baum, turning them into fun and funky morality tales for young and adult readers.

In his newest novel, "Egg & Spoon,'' due to be released Sept. 9, young Elena Rudina leaves her impoverished village in Czarist Russia on a magical adventure that includes switching identities with a rich brat, meeting a prince traveling in disguise and receiving life lessons from a smart aleck witch, Baba Yaga, who inhabits a moving house set atop chicken legs.

Maguire continues to mash together fairy tales and grimmer historical realities to serve his own flavor of magical realism with whimsical touches and a moralistic edge. For example, there's a Faberge egg with Baba Yaga's hut on one side, soldiers springing from dragon teeth and environmental forebodings about global warming.

Describing it, he said, " 'Egg & Spoon' is 'The Prince and the Pauper' - except with girls - meets 'Frozen,' except the world is melting instead of freezing."

Kirkus Review described "Egg & Spoon'' as "an ambitious, Scheherazade-ian novel, rather like a nesting-doll set of stories that succeeds in capturing the complexities of both Russia and life itself.''

Maguire will be at the Concord Book Shop, 65 Main St., Concord at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 14, and at Barnes & Noble in the Walpole Mall, 82 Providence Highway, on Tuesday, Sept. 16, at 6 p.m. for book signing events.

Maguire said raising three adopted children – now teenagers – reminds him of fairy tales' enduring power as vehicles of moral truth and cathartic entertainment.

"I think the one thing I've become even more aware of is that basically every moment in the life of a child is a moment of moral understanding,'' he said recently.

The author of 30 novels including "Wicked'' and "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister,'' Maguire said recently, "I have tried in writing fantasy to honor the fact children can handle serious stuff but they also need breaks for humor.''

"Because children are children, I can't be boring,'' he said. "My subconscious requires my stories to be gripping, immediate, funny but important.''

On a deeply personal level, Maguire understands the power of fairy tales to touch young readers of all times and cultures.

In 1954, Maguire's mother died from complications she experienced giving birth to him. His grief-stricken father sent his children to live with relatives. Maguire lived several months with an aunt who sent him to a Catholic orphanage where he remained until he was 2 and was reunited with his father and stepmother.

Page 2 of 2 - "Consider the tales the Grimm brothers collected of children left in distress,'' he said. "They're not tales of long ago and far away. They're family tales for today.''

He observed the three children he adopted with his husband, painter Andy Newman, came from Cambodia and Guatemala. "They're not with the biological parents. Life was rough for them,'' said Maguire. "They had to develop strategies to survive. Teenagers are living proof that fairy tales aren't dead.''

His immensely popular "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West'' was turned into a smash Broadway musical.

Adding to Maguire's genre-bending reputation, Universal Pictures announced, prior to publication, it has optioned the rights to "Egg & Spoon'' and plans to make it into an animated movie.

Maguire has been praised as an innovative writer who fuses the universal conflicts of folklore and fairy tales with real historical dangers. His characters, like Elena in "Egg & Spoon'' or Elphaba in "Wicked,' inhabit make-believe worlds yet must cope with contemporary issues that make his tales both timeless and familiar.

Maguire said he "gets a little tired'' of reviewers who write he revises, revisits or reinvents fairy tales and fantasies like Baum's "Wizard of Oz'' to craft his updated tales like "Wicked.''

He said, "I like to think of it as reigniting something so it bursts into flames as never heard before.''

Chris Bergeron is a Daily News staff writer. Contact him at cbergeron@wickedlocal.com or 508-626-4448. Follow us on Twitter @WickedLocalArts and on Facebook.